Neoliberals and conservatives will get to trot out their favorite phrase, “trade war.” And to be sure, there’s a jobs vs. environment question to be asked about this latest move by the Obama Administration. But the Commerce Department has moved ahead with slapping high tariffs on Chinese solar panels:

The United States on Thursday announced the imposition of antidumping tariffs of more than 31 percent on solar panels from China.

The antidumping decision is among the biggest in American history, covering one of the largest and fastest-growing categories of imports from China, the world’s largest exporter.

The department said the United States bought $3.1 billion worth of Chinese solar cells last year, giving China more than half the American market for the devices.

Many solar panel installers in the United States have opposed tariffs on Chinese panels, contending that inexpensive imports have helped spur many homeowners and businesses to put solar panels on their rooftops. The new tariffs are likely to mean a substantial increase in the price of solar panels here.

Basically you have a debate between US solar manufacturers and US solar installers. The installers say that their industry is finally getting competitive with fossil fuels, in part thanks to cheap solar panels from China. And they say that this will retard their growth. The manufacturers, of course, don’t want to be taken out of the solar market, undercut by Chinese imports. This is basically what happened to Solyndra.

From an environmental standpoint, if you want to see renewable energy grow, you may not care about the country of origin of your solar panels. China subsidizes their solar industry, and that means more solar panels available to the world. They do the same thing with wind turbines, which is the subject of a subsequent case in front of the Commerce Department. Do we want to increase the costs of these industries, making coal and natural gas more attractive?

Here’s Sherrod Brown’s argument. He supports the solar tariffs. This is from his press release:

Brown wrote to President Obama in December expressing his support for a petition filed by a coalition of U.S. solar manufacturers with the U.S. Department of Commerce and International Trade Commission seeking relief from illegal Chinese trade practices. The petitioners alleged that Chinese imports of crystalline silicon solar cells are being dumped into the U.S. market far below their fair value, and that Chinese solar cell and panel producers receive massive subsidies from the Chinese government. In October 2011, Brown introduced an amendment to increase trade enforcement to enable U.S. trade officials to increase trade enforcement initiatives to level the playing field for Ohio solar industry and other manufacturers forced to compete with unfair Chinese trade practices.

“The Commerce Department’s decision today shows that trade enforcement matters, and is an important step towards combating China’s multiple, massive, and illegal trade violations. It’s been proven that China isn’t competing in the clean-energy marketplace—it’s cheating, and its unfair solar trade practices have already resulted in the announced the loss of thousands of good-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs,” Brown said. “I applaud the Commerce Department for working to hold China accountable for its unfair solar subsidies and dumping practices. If we want to have a solar manufacturing industry, we need to utilize trade enforcement tools to combat the massive export subsidies other countries provide. This decision will help establish a fair and level playing field for American manufacturers, including the many solar manufacturers in Northwest Ohio.”

Brown also has pending legislation with Chuck Schumer that would help protect the domestic solar industry.

I would agree with Brown on a few points. It’s not like China only violates this one trade law, on solar panels. This is about the multiple trade violations in which they are engaged. And if you let the solar panels slide, you’re essentially picking winners and losers among industries based on what social or environmental policy you want to see. There are either trade laws or there aren’t.

I would like to see the spread between Chinese and US-made solar panels in the wake of this announcement. If demand for solar remains high – and it’s growing all the time – I’m not sure whether people will mind paying a bit extra in the near-term. The long-term advantages of solar work out the same financially: to the individual, there’s a savings from going off the grid or selling back power to the grid. The cost of the parts up front isn’t that much of a factor in the long run. And the way that power companies are charging for solar these days, with no up-front cost and factoring the price into your electricity bill over 25 years, I’m not sure anyone really sees this cost increase in the end. Plus, you allow stateside manufacturing companies to compete.

“Brown wrote to President Obama in December expressing his support for a petition filed by a coalition of U.S. solar manufacturers with the U.S. Department of Commerce and International Trade Commission seeking relief from illegal Chinese trade practices. The petitioners alleged that Chinese imports of crystalline silicon solar cells are being dumped into the U.S. market far below their fair value, and that Chinese solar cell and panel producers receive massive subsidies from the Chinese government.”

That any US policy-maker can talk with a straight face and clear conscience about the illegality of a country subsidizing a product and then dumping it below value on another country’s market is one of nature’s great mysteries.

I wonder where the Germans buy their panels? They got serious about solar and wind years ago, while we never have.
Since our government seems to blunder through most of our problems, it might be smart to look for answers elsewhere.

I believe the financial problems we are witnessing in Europe and here are the result of trade policies. The reason is that our ruling establishments have decided that rather than have immigration, they would rather send jobs to China and import from there. The elites are the only winners in world trade. However, West has lost control of its economies. We are dealing with problems we never had to face before, and we don’t know how to solve them. And the only way to solve the problem of trade is to stuff the genie back in the bottle, and go back to compartmentalized economic policies, where you can shut the door on problems at the border. The entire world is now a floating ship with doors open between compartments, so the water is flooding in. If you think about it, though, there is no need for trade. What we really need are good economic policies, to entice manufacturers to come in and make products in a particular country for that market only. There is no reason to export from China. An American company can manufacture products in China for Chinese markets, and here for domestic market, and sold at different prices in both countries, since each has different manufacturing costs. Any imports should be subject to huge duties. But you can’t just have stick alone. Governments should also have carrots, why a factory should locate in that country. I like what Fernandes is doing in Argentina, but it is all stick, no carrots. Money likes certainty, and countries should find ways to help businesses that want to manufacture here, instead of making it difficult to establish manufacturing operations here. Instead of wold trade, why don’t we have standardized investment rules.

A friend of mine owns a solar panel installation company. We talk about this tariff issue frequently. In the near future, I will be buying what is now a $20,000 Chinese-made system from him. The effect of this tariff will be precisely to limit the number of new solar users because the up front cost will be too much. If the Obama administration cares about renewable energy–which it most assuredly does not (Obama refused to even have the old Carter-era solar panels installed on the WH)–then they can subsidize domestic production. This is all about protecting the fossil fuel industry.

We have been hearing little whispers over the last 6 months or so in the mainstream media about how solar panels aren’t really cost effective, etc., etc.. You know, put the public off a little to solar power to prep them for the tariff. The fossil fuel folks are out to wreck the renewable energy industry. If they get their way, domestic producers of panels will be just as out of work. This has got fuck all to do with job creation.

I agree that Obama’s pro nuclear and fossil fuel people influenced this as much as the solar panel manufacturers. Aren’t there plenty of other things we could put tariffs on that aren’t as desirable as solar energy capture?

Please do everything you can to cause the $1.5 trillion the Defense Depart proposes spending on F-35 warplanes be spent instead on solar power and electric vehicles.

I am in the process of having an $11,000 solar system installed on the roof of my home office. It will generate enough electricity to meet all my household and office needs and will also have enough surplus capacity to charge a 24 kwh electric car battery daily, which is the size battery in the Leaf or Focus or Volt.

$1.5 trillion (the F-35 budget)is enough to purchase 75 million such solar systems, installed and grid tied. There are about 75 million single family homes in the United States. After purchasing and installing 75 million rooftop solar systems, there will be enough money left over from the $1.5 trillion proposed to be spent purchasing 2,400 F-35 warplanes to offer 25 million $27,000 electric car rebates.

We can get energy independence and fight a real threat, climate change, with this money. Let’s do it. Do what you can to make it happen!

Chinese have been killing our industries slowly over the past 20 years. I have family affected who have been been literally ruin out of business by the Chinese, auto parts, honey, and solar power. They cheat and we just let them get away with it.

You are putting blame in the wrong place. Blame belongs in Washington. If you let your dog sit on your head, it will. China will push the rules until told to stop. Trade is a protection racket, and Chinese are protected by Washington. It is the will of the owners of this country that this should go on, therefore it does. How do you explain that not a single financial criminal has gone to jail? Same forces are at work in trade.

I have solar for four years and with high-priced panels, as a result, so take this for what it is worth.
The cheaper the panels to make, the more folks may respond to the idea.
regardless, the payback situation is fine, either way. Of course, it is better to get payback in 5 years instead of 10.
but that is often not the point.

I regret, however, that in every article I read there is no indication of the actual pricing structure of China vs. other panels.

i wish this didnt sound so plausible.
but i had a chat yesterday with a guy who owned the EV1 before it was taken from him.
ditto the Ford Ranger EV.
he managed to get one of those back in a lottery after the uproar.

those shieks and texas oil men are the same guys, just with different hats.

Sorry if I wasn’r clear. It IS Washington’s fault. The Chinese are just being Chinese.

I remember a civics lesson in which it was said that the federal government’s two highest priority duties were to police the borders and protect local business from foreign intrusion. They be prety much falling down in BOTH areas.

I just had to sign up (email, some demographics) to access old Do-it-yourself-solar panel videos from Dan and Denise Rojas at Growing Science. No idea if Dan and Denise are still involved or if the sight is trust worthy.

IMHO with the speed with which all these technologies are changing, DIY makes sense in decentralizing power generation.

We do subsidize the solar industry….when I put FV panels on my house I received both Fed. Govt. help & State help. The cost savings made it affordable to install the panels. It is still a costly adventure, but I am saving, even in the midwest between 1/4 to 1/3 my energy consumption per month – I have a 2,400 sf house fully insulated (walls & windows). There is “almost” no air leaks – based on thermal tests.

I can confirm that the companies selling solar panels also received subsidies. My buddy owns Texas Solar Co, in Austin. Also, City of Houston now has solar panels on about 40% of the city’s buildings. I dont know how that works, cost-effeciency wise, but they’ve done it.

I won’t be able to answer these tech questions for you. I can run circuits from the box, but that’s the limit of my electrical ability. I have only gotten as far in the project as generally reviewing the various systems for what might be right for my house. Another friend of mine is in the process of having one of these systems installed, so I will know more when I see his completed.

I don’t know what is used for storage. In the more distant future, I plan to make a wind power system for outdoor power supply that uses deep-cycle batteries for storage. That is something within my technical grasp.

Anyway, you may like to contact him yourself. Here is a link to a renewable energy symposium at which he presented recently. His company is Oak Grove Fabrication out of Alta Vista, Kansas. Contact info is at the bottom of the page: http://dyckarboretum.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&eventID=188 I’m sure my bias as a friend is coloring this recommendation, but professionally he is competent, honest, damn good people, and, very importantly, he knows how to make shit.

It’s important to see the political play this is for Obama before leaping to the conclusion that he’s protecting Big Oil. By going after China on solar, Obama can point to their unfair trade practices as the reason Solyndra failed. It takes away a talking point his opponents simply won’t let go of: that his administration invested in Solyndra purely out of cronyism. Now Obama can say the investment was good, but China’s dumping killed it.

Overall I like the move as it helps bring people around to the notion that we can protect our manufacturing industries in this country. Now we need a subsidy funded by this tariff to help solar energy producers buy panels.

The questions about the relative environmental impacts ignore a huge factor: how environmentally sound are the production processes used to create these solar panels? One of the big reasons they are so cheap is because producers don’t have to worry much about protecting the environment during the manufacture as they would in America or Europe.

If a byproduct of these things being produced is polluting the water, soil and air around the factories; if energy efficiency in industrial processes is ignored; if the energy being used in the factories is produced by a means that is terribly polluting … the sum total of using a solar-panel from China may just add up to doing more damage to the earth environment as a whole than just using mega-source energy and improving our national profile through utility regulation.

Sorry, your rebates are not a subsidy to the solar industry, even though it may assist manufacturers in making their products available to those who can take advantage of the rebates. A subsidy to the solar industry favors the industry, not the consumer. And in a time of increasing imperatives with respect to fossil fuel emissions, this should be a no brainer for government; it should be a necessary absolute. In fact, the government could well be taken to court for not providing for the general welfare in the subsidies it gives to entities detrimental to our health.

As if it isn’t environmentally destructive enough to sabotage the Climate Change negotiations, now we get this piece of crap legislation. You’d think that the government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry would suffice.